Low, Mike Doughty

Low

Sub Pop will release Low’s Ones and Sixes, the group’s latest studio effort, on CD / LP / DL worldwide Friday, September 11th. The album, featuring the standouts “No Comprende” [listen here], “What Part of Me,” “Gentle,” and “No End,” was co-produced by the band and engineer BJ Burton at Justin Vernon’s April Base Studios in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Low’s Alan Sparhawk had this offer about the new album: “In our 20+ years of writing songs, I’ve learned that no matter how escapist, divergent, or even transcendent the creative process feels, the result is more beholden to what is going on at the moment. It’s hard to admit that one is so influenced by what is in front of us. Doesn’t it come from something magical and far away? No, it comes from here. It comes from now. I’m not going to tell you what this record is about because I have too much respect for that moment when you come to know it for yourself.

“I will, however, tell you about how we made it. BJ contacted us a few years ago and invited us out to the studio where he works with Justin, Lizzo, and other artists. The studio is close to our home in Duluth, so it seemed tempting. Months later, I worked with BJ, producing the recent record by Trampled by Turtles. We got along and seemed to have similar curiosity about the possibilities for Low, so time was booked and songs finished. We tracked under the soft glow of laser discs playing lost classics like Point Break and Speed. Glenn Kotche from Wilco was there one day working on another record, so we had him in to play hand-percussion on a couple songs. Working 2 or 3 days at a time, leaving it with BJ, then back again for more, we don’t have the time or money to second-guess or pick from a pool of possibilities. This is the whole thought – the untamed truth. This is now. This is everything.”

Mike Doughty

Ten Things Mike Doughty Would Like You to Know About THE FLIP IS ANOTHER HONEY:

1. It’s all covers. I’ve been obsessed with making beats, arranging music, and, partially, this record came out of an obsessive itch to do more work. I play every single sound on 12 of the songs.

2. The title is from a 1956 review, in Variety, of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Crazy Arms.” It means, “The b-side is also really good.”

3. The inimitable Rosanne Cash sings on “Take Me Home, Country Roads”; pianist “Cashmere” Dan Chen and cellist Andrew “Scrap” Livingston, appear on three tunes, including “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat,” a song from the musical “Guys and Dolls.”

4. I had to get approval from the John Denver estate for “Sunshine,” which is me rapping between choruses of a sample of his voice. I was surprised to hear that the John Denver estate was really stoked about the way I used the sample.

5. I broke cover-album rules, and did two songs by a single artist. Actually, I broke it twice: two Cheap Trick songs, two John Denver songs.

6. “Take Me Home, Country Roads” was my first favorite song. I listened to it with my ear pressed against a boxy, bulky cassette-tape player, in the back of a massive, green 1970s Oldsmobile.

7. I sing one tune entirely in French–the Camille song “Ta Douleur.” When I was a kid, and my military dad was stationed in Belgium, I was sent to a French-speaking school. There were a couple of other American kids whose parents had the same idea. Our teacher, Monsieur Delboef, who stank of booze, would scream at us, occasionally, but otherwise let us draw spaceships in our notebooks all day. So, I don’t speak French, but have been told I have a pretty convincing accent. My high school French teachers, when they heard me read aloud from the textbook, were shocked that I couldn’t speak the language. I learned “Ta Douleur” phonetically.

8. The chorus of “Ta Douleur” is, “I’ll take your pain.” The point-of-view is a woman telling a dude she’s gonna give his girlfriend the boot. One line is, “Who’s this gate-crasher, this dirty, brat-bitch of a little sister?” It’s a weird thing for me to sing. I have a belief that when you cover a song, you shouldn’t change the gender–for instance, Tiffany’s Beatles cover, “I Saw Him Standing There.” A singer is obligated to take on the difficulty of the gender mix–that would mean Tiffany sings from a gay point of view, and I’m singing “Ta Douleur” to a bisexual person of unspecified gender.

9. “Reach Out” is from the soundtrack of the 1982 animated movie “Heavy Metal.” I waited for Rick Nielsen, of Cheap Trick, outside Ike Hall, at West Point (my dad taught there), in 1984, and buttonholed him, asking him to play “Reach Out.” He laughed nervously–apparently it was an utterly left-field request.

10. The cover is a photo I took of a bombed-out concrete-shack record store in Jamaica. Sad, and wistfully funny, given the state of record- store-land.